


faster with a scotch

by aquaexplicit



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Harrisco Are A Mess Individually And As A Couple, Harrisco Fest 2018, Harry's Not As Healthy As He Thinks He Is, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Post Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 20:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquaexplicit/pseuds/aquaexplicit
Summary: He’s licking the alcohol burn from Cisco’s tongue before he realizes he shouldn’t.(Loose fill for Cisco drops in on E2.)





	faster with a scotch

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: harrisco hook up while drunk and neither of them are in the place mentally or emotionally to make good decisions.

Hooky, Cisco called it, when he stepped through a breach and slid onto Harry’s desk. He might as well have been stepping out of Harry’s head. Fully formed like a celestial thing, grinning earnest and bright. It didn’t matter that Cisco hadn’t contacted him in nearly four weeks, or that the last time they spoke, Harry bled weakness over both of them.

Cisco asked a question. Harry always said yes.

-

“Jesse really calls it homework?”

Harry nods into Cisco’s loud, easy laugh. The sound seems to overtake every noise in the other Earth cantina Cisco breached them to. It’s nice, the broadness of Cisco's smile. And it’s lovely to see Cisco bare his teeth, to watch Cisco’s throat work under the warm knuckle roll of joy, even if Cisco’s amusement is at Harry’s expense. Harry doesn’t mind.

“She really does,” Harry tells him. “I started out with a 10th grade grasp of pretty much… Everything. So she’s tutoring me, helping me run STAR while I get back on my feet. Or my brain.”

Cisco grins over a shot Harry didn’t realize he grabbed. “Well if you ever need another tutor, you can give me a call.”

“That’s good to know. I wasn’t sure. With the way we left things.”

“How did we leave things?” Cisco asks, eyebrows together.

Awkwardly, Harry thinks. Harry practically cut himself open at Cisco’s feet, then ran as quickly as his clumsy knees could carry him after saying three words out loud he hadn’t said to anyone but his daughter in decades.

Harry corrects himself mentally. They ended things disastrously.

“You get cranky when I leave,” Harry answers, grasping for the ease of their usual banter. “Usually you’re bitching at me when you see me again. Not buying me drinks.”

Cisco shrugs. His shoulder rolls loose with the movement. Harry remembers the last time he gripped Cisco there and wonders if it still aches. If he still needs someone to rub it.

Harry blinks, cheeks hot, at his drink. There’s less left then he realized.

“I can’t be mad that you wanted to be with your daughter. That’d make me almost as big of a dick as you.”

Bitterness cracks the whiskey smooth of Cisco’s face, but Harry’s brain glitches when Cisco soothes it by swallowing another shot.

“You could never be almost as big as me,” Harry says reflexively. He forces himself to peer into the amber still clinging to his glass and not the open sky of Cisco’s throat or the desperate hint of collar bone exposed under Cisco’s button up.

Cisco chokes on his drink, giggling.

Harry feels lighter at the sound. “But I’d understand. I’m all in touch with my empathy, now. No more mental blocks. If you thought it was a bad way to leave, or if you were angry with me for not contacting you - ”

“I haven’t contacted you,” Cisco cuts in, simple as a clean sharp edge. “Can’t expect you to contact me.”

“Right,” Harry agrees, uneasy with how agreeable Cisco breathes.

“Look, I didn’t come get you to guilt you about anything, okay? Or to have some big heart to heart about the absolute nonsense the past few months have been.”

Harry nods. “Okay.” A beat. “Why did you, then? Not that I’m not happy to see you.”

“This Earth has the best whiskey sour of any Earth I’ve been to,” Cisco says. He jerks his chin towards the bartender, then smiles, smoothly ordering them another round. “No one else appreciates whiskey sours like you.”

The answer is good enough for Harry.

If he gets to sit with Cisco, talk and joke, and forget the violence of his own hubris and hands, he can pretend he’s forgiven himself the same way Cisco has. He can forget the gentle waves of humiliation that lap him chilled each time he remembers how Cisco had to take care of him and when he thinks of how Cisco never actually said _I love you_ back. He can breathe.

-

Seventeen days pass before he hears from Cisco again. Then Harry sees him twice in one week. It’s on this fourth adventure that Harry realizes Cisco is actually matching him drink for drink. Not that Cisco has ever been a light weight, but he always slides into adorably tipsy glasses before Harry does. Now he doesn't slip slur his words until Harry is heavy against his shoulder.

Harry knows, how he would’ve always known, that this is a sign for concern. The walls he’s built have shaken down and the clumsiness that once held his tongue numb has stabilized. He doesn’t doubt that he knows what to do in this situation. He doesn’t doubt that he can be helpful, that he can be enough for Cisco to lean on.

Cisco doesn’t give him a chance.

-

The fifth time Cisco illuminates before him, Cisco’s cheeks are already flush. His grin is already easy.

Harry frowns at him over his work desk. It’s after hours, thankfully. Harry has had enough trouble explaining to his employees why he needs a calculator for complex equations. He doesn’t know how he would explain a Reverb look alike standing in his office, smiling sweet and pretty as he hops onto Harry’s desk and invites him for mojitos.

“Are you drunk?” Harry asks, watching Cisco kick his feet out.

“Me and Ralph pre-gamed, but then he bailed.” Cisco rolls his eyes. “For a girl. Lame.”

“Good for Ralph.”

Cisco’s eyes narrow. It’s a flutter of movement, but it strikes Harry quick when he sees it. He recognizes the sadness. The defeat.

“Ramon - ”

“I know the perfect place for you to catch up to me, though. It’s on Earth 16. I haven’t taken you there yet.”

“I don’t think you should be breaching under the influence.”

Cisco laughs. “You’ve never had a problem with it before. C’mon, Harry.”

Harry is going to say no. He’s going to tell Cisco to sleep it off on his office couch, which is more comfortable than it looks, then ask Cisco what exactly he’s trying to numb with the anesthetic of cocktails and Harry’s poor company. He is.

He is, until Cisco opens his hand, holding it out for Harry’s as if he’s done it a hundred times before. Harry thinks of the last time he rested his hand over Cisco’s, held it until he could feel the warmth of Cisco’s skin seep into his own.

“You can’t intervention me if I’m already fucked up,” Cisco tells him, smiling, carefree.

It’s a question without words. And Harry always says yes.

-

Harry doesn’t know who kisses who first. He suspects he starts it.

They’ve just stumbled out of a breach, laughing breathless as blue closes in on the bartender who’s screaming at them. Harry doesn’t even remember what offense they committed when he trips over his own feet, or Cisco’s feet, and ends up crowding Cisco in the door frame of his own bedroom.

He barely has a moment to think how good Cisco is to have breached them directly to Harry's house before their mouths are coming together. It’s magnetic. No hesitation. No soft, tender hearted desperation. He’s licking the alcohol burn from Cisco’s tongue before he realizes he shouldn’t.

“Wait,” Harry whispers into a mouthful of silky hair.

“Why?” Cisco asks, lips slipping over Harry’s jaw. Harry’s fingers scramble into Cisco’s shirt. “Haven’t we been waiting?”

Yes, Harry thinks, then no. Wanting. He’s been wanting, and he hoped Cisco had been too, but there’s been no waiting. This was never going to happen. This isn’t going to happen.

Harry is sure he’s supposed to stop this. Neither of them are in the position to make a decision of his magnitude. Cisco must be waiting for Harry to stop this as he busies himself with sucking on Harry’s earlobe.

But when Harry opens his mouth, it’s filled with the taste of Cisco’s moan, of Cisco’s wet little whimper under the slide of Harry’s teeth. Harry grips Cisco by the jaw. He’s breathless when he manages to slip away long enough to pant.

“Are you sure? Cisco. You have to be sure. I can’t - ”

Cisco never actually says he’s sure. He does unfasten Harry’s jeans and grip Harry with firm, warm fingers. He does lick Harry’s throat, then lets Harry lick his, tipping his head broken back and groaning.

He does say, “Anything, Harry. Just stay with me.”

Harry takes everything Cisco offers.  

-

The next morning, Harry’s head pounds dry in time with his heart. Cisco is sleeping next to him.

Harry vaguely remembers Cisco asking him to stay. It's odd, in the sober sunlight. Of course Harry would stay in his own home. He doesn’t think Cisco will be upset to find himself curled in Harry's sheets, but that doesn’t ease the spike of panic that boils his blood.

Quiet, he slips out of bed, stumbling to his coffee maker. It's more complicated than Cisco's Earth 1 Keurig, which was one of the last machines he could use, before the dark matter took almost everything. He would offer Cisco morning coffee in penance for his betrayal. Cisco always took it with a gentle smile.

Harry recognizes the smile now for what it was. Pity. Sadness. Hurt. All of it inflicted by Harry’s own ego.

He brings a cup to Cisco while he’s still sleeping. It’s awkward, and for several moments, Harry finds himself watching Cisco slumber. He seems so peaceful. Soft and warm. The smell of the dark roast he's learned is Cisco's favorite must be enough to permeate his hangover. Cisco blinks awake.

He seems surprised to see Harry there. Pleasantly. He drains his cup with a thanks, then pulls Harry back into bed. They fall asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing.

-

The second wake up doesn’t go quite as well.

Cisco is gone, but there's a text lighting the interdimensional cell Cisco made for him. It blinks underneath his pillow. 

_Earth 20 has happy hour from 3 to 4. You in?_

It's a question. And Harry always says yes. 


End file.
